Shoshin Pico-Breweryhttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer
Notes on our homebrewing adventuresThu, 10 Jan 2019 04:45:27 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3Batch 78: Falconer’s Flight/MO SMaSH(ish)http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=627
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 01:36:25 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=627I scored a huge hop sale on MoreBeer.com before the holiday, and in that purchased my first ever Falconer’s Flight (1#). Over the holiday I finished the build and tested my 1-element electric brewing control (adapted from theelectricbrewery.com). To test out the system (and add some more hops to my current tap list), I chose to brew a MO/Falconer’s Flight SMaSH(ish). The ‘ish’ is due to the pound of oats I added – this was a mistake in terms of process, as I didn’t have any rice hulls, and the sparge got stuck ( a few times ). I brewed this in the red 5gal cooler, and it seems that this was not a good setup for the 6″ thermoprobe that I used, as this crept down to ~147* – to compensate, I tried upping the temperature of the HLT, but it didn’t budge the probe temps – I dropped my old floating thermometer in about 45 minutes into the mash and lo and behold – it was up around 160° (!!!) so … I dunno what happened or what will come of it, but the mash had a gradual rise from about 140-152° over about 15 minutes, and then sat probably in the 150-152° range for another 30 minutes before running up to 160°. I probably won’t be able to replicate this with any fidelity. After a few stuck sparges, I dumped everything into the big blue mash tun, ran it off, boiled, and made beer I think I accidentally made a model of a few various NEIPA recipes (including use of WLP007 like Trillium does) so I’ll dry hop this as an NEIPA and we’ll see what happens!!

Recipe Type: All GrainYeast: WLP007Yeast Starter: 1L starter created from 1 packet the day before, spun on the magnetic spinner over nightBatch Size (Gallons): 11Original Gravity: 1.044Final Gravity:IBU: 33 if you don’t count the hop stand at 165°, but 64 calculated by Brewer’s Friend if you believe their whirlpool calcBoiling Time (Minutes): 60Color: 6?Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 61-64°Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

10# Maris Otter
1# Quaker Oats

gradual rise from about 140-152° over about 15 minutes, and then sat probably in the 150-152° range for another 30 minutes before running up to 160°. dumped into a different mash tun after a few stuck sparges, which dropped the temps but sparged with 170° water.

2oz Falconer’s Flight after temperature dropped to 165°, then whirlpooled as I continued to drop temps – they reached down to ~145° over 20 minutes before I began to transfer to the carboy. Probably stood between 165° and 145° for ~30 minutes.

1oz Falconer’s Flight per day for 4 days starting at high krausen

UPDATE 1/9/19: I pitched the yeast starter a few hours after transferring to the carboy. I checked the next morning and there were beginnings of krausen, and by the evening there was full, almost looking like post-peak krausen. I measured the temperature at about 62°, so the krausen may have just been tamed by the temperature (ambient was cold in the basement). I’ve since pitched ~1oz FF/day into the carboy (we’re now on day 3; the first two days were 32 grams, today was 28 grams)

]]>Batch 77: Harvest Amber Alehttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=613
Sun, 30 Sep 2018 23:38:11 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=613The next in a series of pumpkin ales for the season, inspired by the impeccable Nepenthe Amber Ale recipe (adapted earlier this year to include MO as the base malt), and riding on the heels of the Pumpkin Dubbel that placed 3rd in the professional panel of the homebrew comp for the 2016 Baltimore Craft Beer Festival, and brewed to enter into this year’s (2018) BCBF Homebrew Competition, I present to you: the Harvest Amber Ale.

This is basically a re-brew of Nepenthe Amber Ale, adding caramelized pumpkin and (a very careful and small portion of) pumpkin spice

yielded about 10 gallons spread between 2 carboys, but the second carboy seems to have gotten all of the sludge (!).

EDIT 10/1/18 am: HAPPY YEAST! yeasties are chugging away at 74°. I put in blow-out tubes in anticipation of a rager. The glass 6gal carboy had all of the sludge (looks like ~1/2 sludge) and has a nice calm krausen. The big mouth plastic carboy had almost all beer, and is raging (hence, blow-out tube).

UPDATE 10/6/18: Tastes soooo good, very subtle spice profile and a very malty/biscuity/warm-bready backbone that hits in the middle of the taste and lingers. FG: 1.007 (7.3% ABV). Almost want to pull and keg it right now, but there is a subtle and indescribable off-flavor on the nose and I want to see if the yeast will figure that out. Also, this recipe included the same ratio of spice to beer as the Pumpkin Dubbel, but the dubbel had a more prominent spice profile. This strongly suggests that indeed using Belgian Ale yeast in the dubbel had the desired effect of adding/accentuating/augmenting the spice profile. Might add a bit more spice next time (or maybe consider splitting the next batch and fermenting half on Notty or Chico, half on a Dubbel yeast.

]]>Batch 76: Stephanie’s India Pale Alehttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=607
Sun, 16 Sep 2018 23:12:09 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=607The name of the game today is: make beer. We have pale male, some C120, some rye, and some hops so … I think we’re gonna make an IPA Adding dextrose at the end of the boil to augment the ABV and dry it out a little more

Chilled below 70°, pitched 5 packets of Brooklyn Brew Shop 1-gallon brew club yeast. Woohoo, thank you Stephanie for saving the day!!! Stephanie Libonati gifted me two quarters worth of brooklyn brew shop brew club boxes I thought I could re-use saved yeast from previous batches (69, 70, or 72) but these all ended up infected (and a starter was lost, boohoo), but thankfully I had the yeast from these Brooklyn kits!!!!! Far, far better than nothing. Now I have to put together the grain bills from the remaining kit beers to see what I can get muhaha.

There are a bunch of random hop additions (ranging 0.2 to 0.4 oz) from these beers that I might also be able to commandeer for a dry-hopping schedule, including: Nelson Sauvin, Ahtanum, Simcoe, Galaxy … these might be killer dry hops

These are hops left over from pilfering the Brooklyn Brew Shop 1gal beer kits gifted to me by Stephanie. Thanks, Stephanie!!! Since the yeast from those kits also saved this beer, I think it only fitting to name it after her. Here’s to drinkin!

UPDATE 9/30/18 late night: two full kegs of beer! Hop aroma is nice, but matched with an unfortunate apple flavor This may be the product of fermentation temps getting Out Of Control (in the low 80s at certain points). Oh well. Beer!!

]]>Batch 73/74: Pliny Two Wayshttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=593
Sun, 01 Jul 2018 04:21:35 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=593The experiment today: brew a Pliny Clone with a handful of hop substitutions, and split the batch between a standard fermentation (Batch 73, one carboy with San Diego Super/WLP090) and one as a NEIPA (Batch 74, in a carboy with London Fog Ale Yeast/WLP066). Based on the following Pliny recipe:

I simultaneously brewed a pale ale (boat beer? Batch 75). In truth this may not taste quite like Pliny but the proper half should hopefully fit the bill of a righteous West Coast IPA (73), and the experimental half (NEIPA; 74) – we’ll see!

— SO word on the street seems to be that linalool and geraniol are oils likely to be bioconverted. According to the YCH web site, classics in NEIPA (citra, mosaic, amarillo, less often used: simcoe) have higher percentages of these oils than other hops (just clicking through reports on different varieties). It turns out that NUGGET, Cascade, and Northern Brewer also express these to varying degrees. Simcoe seems to cover the geraniol base, nugget seems solid on linlool, and cascade and NB seem to meet in the middle. So, instead of the suggested 1oz each Columbus, Centennial, and Simcoe for first dry hop (and 0.25oz each for second dry hop) recommended by the Pliny clone recipe, our dry hop additions will be as follows:

UPDATE 7.9.18: the Pliny clone tastes full-bodies, HOPPY, and quite delicious. A little cloudy in the fermenter (hasn’t dropped clear yet, but I racked to 2ndary anyway), and the first taste was a little sweet, but it rang in at 1.012, leaving a whopping 10.26% ABV in the glass. It does not in any way drink like a 10% beer. Holy crap. The NEIPA smells oh-so-juicy, but I haven’t sampled it yet – I’ll do so upon kegging, in a few days, but – oh boy. Ohhhhh boy. Yum

]]>Batch 72: Imperial Stouthttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=585
Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:21:37 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=585This beer was destined to be a partigyle … but ended up just being a bitchin beer

chilled to the 70s, then pitched onto yeast cake from batch #70 (12.5gal mark on the conical, and there was a good 1/2 gallon of trub/yeast left over from batch 70). Next morning, the yeast were VERY happy, and the krausen had almost reached the top of the conical

]]>Batch 71: Nepenthe Amberhttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=573
Sun, 25 Mar 2018 03:38:04 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=573So, for batch 70, I kindof … planned too large a grain bill for my mash tun. Aaaaaand … maybe we crushed a little too much grain for the plan. PSA: don’t measure and crush grain when you’ve been drinking heavily on St. Patrick’s day. We tried to fit as much as we could in the mash tun (pushing the thickness), but I ended up with too much M-O, and it was already crushed, so to make sure we didn’t waste it, I planned another beer.

I walked into Nepenthe with a vague notion that I didn’t want to brew something hoppy or light. Chiron (please excuse me if I’ve butchered your name, he’s a solid dude) helped me zero in on the best “not light, not hoppy” recipe in their library to pitch onto a yeast cake from a putatively (it didn’t end up tasking quite like an) orange coriander pale ale (given an upcoming keg lineup including a huge barleywine and a Yankee IPA), and we settled on an Amber Ale.

]]>Batch 70: Glitter Barleywinehttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=567
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 22:16:45 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=567So many thanks to Tom and Drew for the assistance with this brew The day began with a disappointment, when the new heat sticks tripped the breaker. We moved outside into the COLD, and lost a lot of heat in the mash. In addition, we couldn’t fit all 36# of grain that were planned into the mash tun. So, we made beer … we’re just not entirely sure what it will be like. Salud!

About 32# of the grain made it into the mash. We lost a lot of temperature in the process, and ended at 140°. 20 minutes into the mash, I drew off 6 qts and boiled, then another 6 qt and boiled, yielding up to 150° mash in certain areas of the mash (though the heat didn’t quite evenly distribute). Chilled to 65ish°. I had taken three pints, and one half pint, of liquid with yeast from Batch #68. The yeast settled to a few inches thickness at hte bottom of each, and these were pitched into the fermeter.

UPDATE 4/13: reads 1.009 (10.5% abv), definitely with rye spiciness, and some caramel sweet and malty flavor from MO and C60, but not “sweet” just “sweet-like” flavors of the malt. This is gonna be a goodun.

UPDATE 4/15: kegged, and it is HOT, with a strange over-ripe banana peel sweetness. Very green, gonna need a long time to figure itself out.

]]>Batch 69: Oriander Pale Alehttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=556
Sun, 11 Mar 2018 23:36:21 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=556It took a lot of restraint to not come up with a more salacious name for this beer. EDIT after tasting it (3/23), I’m starting to think of something like “easier than a presidential fitness test” b/c it is Easy Drinking.

Technical difficulties were encountered. One of the heat sticks was taking on water and shorting, so while the FWH were simmering away, I went out to secure propane. All in all, the FWH lasted about an hour, which is great b/c we had a boil over once we got to temperature.

Chilled to ~68°, transferred to the FerMonster (recovered ~6 gallons), and pitched 2 old packets (expired 3/2017 and 10/2017, respectively) of Nottingham

UPDATE 3/12: nice calm krausen, and the fermenter reads just under 61*

UPDATE 3/23: clear, LIGHT (straw-colored), and potentially dry as a bone (FG: 1.004??). Rather delicious: crisp, very malty (and a tiny bit bready), and if the orange and coriander are coming through, I’m having a hard time telling. I will need to let the Mrs taste this when it is cool and carbonated, but by many accounts, I think this is shaping up to have the flavor profile of a ?Cream ale? though it’s clocking in at around 6% (I’m wondering if this is b/c I pitched two packets – they were old, but I’m wondering if they were more viable than I had expected). Who cares, it’s TASTY AS HELL. maybe re-make this beer and call it “boat beer”? maybe take the ABV back down a bit in that case?

]]>Batch 68: Yankee IPAhttp://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=545
Sun, 04 Mar 2018 21:01:16 +0000http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=545IPA brewed after a long hiatus and a number of equipment upgrades, including the capability of fly sparging, purchase of a plate chiller, and addition of a chilling coil in the conical fermenter. Oh, and I have pumps. 2 pumps. An I’m Gonna Use’em.

This was originally planned as a NEIPA, however I didn’t have quite the hop complement in the freezer that I needed, and I didn’t have exactly the yeast (something that is known to bioconvert hop oils), so I went with a “kindabutnotreally”NEIPA (maybe should consider that for the name?).

Strike with 180° water, ~7? gal, mash temp starting 152° at 9:35am (perfect!! BrewPal said 6.3 gallons of 175° strike water, but I am finding that adding about 5 degrees can account for heat loss through water transfer during mash-in)

UPDATE 3/7 am: The outside of the conical fermenter read 66° this morning. I opened the lid to a bright, harsh waft of CO2, and the top of the krausen read 66.2°. And, the beer smelled amazingly tasty.

UPDATE 3/9 am: Checking every morning and evening, and the temps on the outside of the fermenter are between 65° and 67° … keeping it low and slow, that is the tempo, and I like it

UPDATE 3/12: fermenter reads ~64*. Yesterday I pulled 2.5 pints from the side port, and collected some rather thick (compared to past attempts when I “washed” yeast) layers of creamy yeast. Hurray!

UPDATE 3/15: the beer has looked relatively clear for a few days through the frosted side of the conical. I pulled another head of yeast and then hydrometer sample, and the hydrometer read 1.008. I think she’s near ready. Oh, and that plan for a ~5% beer turned into a typical 6.75% IPA. Woohoo?? (For the life of me, I can’t seem to figure out how to brew a session IPA). Gonna keg it tomorrow!!